Waters to Wine:

As chronicled in the older entries of this blog, I've been in pursuit of a column in the school newspaper, The Middlebury Campus, for some time now. After being turned down (once), kept in the lurch (both times), and generally perplexed (more or less continuously), my persistence has paid off: I am now officially the newest columnist for Middlebury's best (read: only) weekly campus newspaper.

My column is about all things booze, which probably comes as no surprise. The idea came to me during my semester abroad, and while I would like to be able to tell people that I write some erudite column on literary theory or physics as applied to sporting events, this will be more fun. The first installment came out in today's paper, and after appearing again next week, it will run bi-weekly through the rest of the semester. I'll post each one on my blog after the paper is released, but you can also read them online on the Middlebury Campus website. See my first attempt below:

At a beer tasting class during my semester abroad in Denmark, the host introduced himself as “a part-time alcoholic,” which makes sense. In Denmark, with its government-funded education and universal healthcare, one can afford a part-time schedule. Me, I’m an American. I work full-time.

My name’s Mike, and while I’m kidding about being an alcoholic, I do have a problem: lately this publication has played host to not one, but two sex columns, which seems a gross misrepresentation of the lives of your average Middlebury College student. If you, like me, have ever, say, walked around this campus after dark on a weekend, you might have noticed that it seems far more Middlebury students are drunk on a regular basis than copulating actively. In fact, this ratio is probably considerable. I’d be willing to wager that on an average weekend night, perhaps 75% of Middlebury students will consume an alcoholic beverage (perhaps Jyoti Daniere will prove me completely out of touch on this statistic), while a significantly smaller number will practice what they’ve learned from the most recent installment of a Campus sex column. Furthermore, while our administration would be loath to admit it, probably a sizeable majority of those engaging in sex consumed alcohol beforehand. It seems to me that the alcohol-drinking masses are criminally underserved, which is where I come in.

I’m no expert on alcohol, but I’ve had my share. I enjoy a good drink, as well as the occasional bad one, and I think there can be a place for both. In this column, I hope to explore this world of alcohol as it relates to the college experience, and specifically, the Middlebury experience. I’m not here to over-glorify it or rehash embarrassing Friday nights, but I’m also not here to turn up my nose to light beer or the most foolish of foolish drinking games. I just believe that alcohol – in all its forms – plays a sizeable enough role in our college lives that it is worth looking at. I don’t believe that you have to drink to have fun, but I do know that some of the best times I’ve had with my friends have involved drinking alcohol, both to excess and in moderation. And I believe that with a more open conversation about both situations, we can avoid some of the troubles that alcohol can most certainly cause.

Over the course of the next few weeks and months, the subject of this column may vary widely. I’ve got in mind reviews of different alcohols (with a nod to my own limited qualifications), profiles of different microbreweries, investigations into the broader alcohol industry, and where our specific place is in all of this. I don’t have a detailed plan, but if alcohol figures as widely into our lives as I think that it does, I doubt that I’ll be starved for material. I suppose that this column, like any good night out with friends, begins without a certain idea of where it will end up. But I think that with equal parts seriousness and silliness, we can make it till morning. Although that might just be the alcohol talking.

The Campus comes out every Thursday, so stay tuned for more columns.